


Crown Glass

by RebelRebel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Badass Rey, Ben is trapped in a mirror, Dark Magic, Devoted Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Enthusiastic Consent, F/M, Fantasy, High Fantasy, Historical Fantasy, Human/Monster Romance, Inspired by Studio Ghibli, Light Angst, Luke is a wizard, Magic, Magic Mirrors, Magical Artifacts, Monsters, Mutual Masturbation, Mutual Pining, Non-Graphic Smut, Non-Graphic Violence, POV Rey (Star Wars), Pining, Prince Ben Solo, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Content, Sexual Inexperience, Sexual Repression, Smut, Soft Ben Solo, Softboi Ben, Spells & Enchantments, Swords & Sorcery, snarky rey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 12:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19151335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebelRebel/pseuds/RebelRebel
Summary: Her pull to it is strange. It’s not like the compulsion everyone has upon seeing a mirror — that quick chance at vanity, self-reflection — it’s…something else.She shouldn’t be able to find it. But she does.She reaches out a hand, skimming the surface–And then a world appears on the other side.“Who are you?”— — —In which Rey, ward to Luke, the High Wizard of all Chandrila, encounters a magic mirror — with a shard named Kylo Ren trapped inside.





	Crown Glass

**Author's Note:**

> For [Avamarga](https://avamarga.tumblr.com/) — congrats on winning this fic for the Reylo Writing Den Anniversary exchange! I hope you like it. ❤️ 
> 
> Based on the prompt, “high fantasy AU” and semi-inspired by the character of Aaravos in Netflix’s The Dragon Prince and a very underrated [episode](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_\(Doctor_Who\)) of Doctor Who.
> 
> I also made this animated GIF for it:
> 
> A huge shout-out and thank you to my AMAZING beta, [SageMcMae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SageMcMae/pseuds/SageMcMae), for her amazingness and for making this AWESOME moodboard below; be sure to check out her work!

Master Luke has a mirror.

The first time Rey finds it, she shies away. She feels the pulse of magic thrumming from it; a persistent, soft vibration that rattles her from fingertips to jaw.

An echo. A heartbeat.

 

— — —

 

“I found something.”

Master Luke raises a bushy brow. He grunts something soft, more a huff than a grunt. His eyes stay on the herbs he’s mixing. He’s preparing the Queen’s potion; Rey knows not to interrupt, but her curiosity wins over propriety.

“A mirror. In the cellar.”

He twitches. Not the friendly twitch of his beard that means he’s smiling underneath; more an outright _jerk_. Like panic he’s pushed down. Hidden, badly. Like the mirror.

“Don’t go near it again.”

He’s insisted she keep away from things of his before — certain ingredients and spellbooks; a gold basin he always keeps clamped shut in his study; anything in his quarters. But a mirror… What was dangerous about a mirror?

He holds out an impatient hand.  

Rey frowns. Clutches the bowl (one of her favorites, hand-carved from witchwood, bone-white and beautiful) of rosewater she’s holding tighter; almost spilling.

“Why?”

He glares at her, and she feels smaller than when he found her, huddling and hurt and hungry; abandoned and alone in a country of cutthroats.

(She loves him for that, but she hates him a little, too. She’d wanted a family, not a Master.)

“Rosewater.”

He gestures for the bowl again, and she hands it over. She lets the question die on her lips, but not her curiosity.

She’ll find it again. Whether he abides it or not.  

 

— — —

 

Rey always knocks four times.

It’s a rhythm; a drumbeat, a song only the Queen and her consort know.

_Tap tap. Tap tap._

The door to the Queen’s rooms creaks open. A tall man — older, but still handsome, roguish even — peeks his head out.

“Come in, Rey.”

Rey slips into the room.

“Taking care of the old man?” Han asks. He eyes her, then the bowl in her hands. It’s still steaming a little.

“Always try to. Anyway, he isn’t so old,” she replies, smiling at him. She likes Han. He’s no Prince and certainly no King (not by law, anyway), but despite how often Leia calls him a wretch or a knave or even a _scoundrel_ , it’s obvious how much she loves him. How much they love each other.

Han chuckles, leading her deeper into the suite.

“That’s why I call him kid.”

“I thought you called him that to vex him.”

“That, too.”

Rey chuckles back, and then they emerge into the Queen’s bedchamber, Han letting her pass through first.

Leia awaits her, sitting up in a large bed made of more witchwood; wrapped in a canopy of violet silk and smiling serenely.

“Rey, dear. Always good to see you.”

Rey bows her head as she approaches. She hands Leia the bowl; carefully, gently. The Queen grasps it delicately, and Rey waits next to her, just in case. Behind her, Han watches, and though Rey can’t see him, she knows his face well enough to see it in her mind’s eye: perfectly at ease, save for the concerned furrow between his brows.

Leia tips the bowl to her lips and drinks. When she finishes, she hands Rey the bowl back, and her grip on Rey’s hand is firm. The pressure of her touch is a comfort, a balm to the tension that fills this room each week Rey brings Leia more to numb her pain.  

“Thank you,” she says, “I shall see you before next week, I hope. Luke keeps you far too cooped up for my liking.”

“I’ll tell him that,” Rey says, grinning.

“Good. Tea, then. You shall come this week when you have time.”

“I will,” says Rey. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

Leia’s smile widens.

“Thank _you_ , dear.”       

 

— — —

 

She does find it again.

She isn’t sure she’ll be able to, at first. She knows it’s in the cellar of her Master’s apartments, tucked away and warded against prying eyes, but she _does_ find it. She waits for him to sleep; for the dead of night to blanket her footsteps down, down, down. Into the darkness.

Her pull to it is strange. It’s not like the compulsion everyone has upon seeing a mirror — that quick chance at vanity, self-reflection — it’s…something _else_.

She _shouldn’t_ be able to find it. But she does.

It stands tall, tucked away in the back of the cellar; she weaves through abandoned armor, crusted cauldrons, and shelves and shelves of spellbooks to reach it. It’s old, _ancient_ even; she can feel that, even if she’d never set eyes on it, full-length and ringed in circles of crown glass that shimmer in the gloom.  

She reaches out a hand, skimming the surface–   

And then a world appears on the other side.

A room, awash in milky moonlight. A desk, buried by books. A bed…  

And a man.

She draws her hand back, heart thumping as loud as the magic in her ears.

The world flickers and fades back into blackness.

 

— — —

 

She goes back the next night. She finds the mirror more easily this time.

She stands in front of it, waiting, but she sees nothing inside. Nothing but her own reflection.

Cautiously, she steps forward, pressing fingers to the glass.

The world appears again; like sunlight dawning over the dunes that spill into the Chandrila sea, and there _is_ a man in the mirror.

This time, he sees her.

“Who are you?” she whispers.

He stares at her like he can’t believe she’s there. She shouldn’t be, so she can’t really blame him.

Dark eyes set in a pale face trail her from forehead to feet, and she watches him shake even darker hair out of his face; thick, slightly matted, but pretty enough that she wonders if it’s soft. He twists his mouth around what she thinks must be a reply, but no sound comes out. Her eyes stop there; trapped between full lips and the curve of his jaw.

She swallows another question.  

He takes a step toward her, and she can make out just a bit more of him, shrouded in the deep blue of his world. Tiny threads of moonlight speckle his shoulders, showing her only slivers of his skin: pale, like his face.

And scarred.

What she thought was moonlight wasn’t — not at all. She sees them now: pale patterns of white lightning, branching across his face and arms like ferns; bleeding from his eyes.

He takes another step, coming just a few feet from the mirror. She flinches but doesn’t back away.

“A splinter. A shard.”

His voice both echoes and rumbles, deep and endless. Thunder to match the lightning.

“What does that mean?” she asks.

His eyes are… _familiar_. That she can’t place them right away prickles her; they’re like something from a memory.

He chuckles; a rasping from deep in his chest, like someone sick with fever. Oddly enough, it’s her who shivers.

“Just what I said,” he answers. She sees his hand twitch next to his thigh, but he doesn’t move again. He pauses; swallows. And then– “Who are you?”

She tears her eyes away from his throat.

“No one.”

He says nothing. He merely stares.

“Rey,” she adds, “The High Wizard’s ward. In Chandrila.”

“I know it. Rey,” he tastes her name on his tongue, and she feels that same _thrum_ of magic again, teasing and tickling her; gooseflesh sprouting on her skin. “Ward. Not apprentice.”

She frowns.

“No.”

“Why not?”

She bristles, letting her hand drop from the glass, and the man — the _shard_ — disappears again; his world falling away with him.

 

— — —

 

“Master Luke?”

He doesn’t look at her. Instead, he hands her a spade, then points a gnarled knuckle toward the nearest bounty of thyme.

She loves the time in the twilight they spend in the castle gardens, brushing and building in the soil. She loves the earth and the things they help grow there. Most of all, she loves all the green.

There’d been no green in Jakku.  

Today, though, she needs more than green. She needs growth.

“I’m ready. It’s time.”

“For?” he asks, tending to the mint with a deft hand.

“My training.”

She clips a large stem, adding it to the bushel in her basket. She breathes in the scent — bright. Fresh. Fragrant. Still, he doesn’t answer.

“Master Luke?”

He rises, quicker than any man his age should. It’s the magic he’s been gifted; of that, she’s certain, because she mixes the salve he rubs into his knees before shuffling off to bed each night.

“No.”

She scrambles up. Shakes the dirt from her trousers.

“Why?”

“I’ve told you this,” he grumbles, “I won’t take an apprentice.”

He stalks away, through the garden gate and back to the castle, but she thinks she hears a faint grouse from him as he goes.

“Not again.”

 

— — —

 

She visits the mirror again that night.

When she touches the glass, the man inside it is waiting for her.

“Can you see my surroundings? I can’t see yours.”

He looks healthier than he had before; eyes brighter, fewer shadows circling underneath.

“...Just you.”

His gaze flickers over her, and she thinks of a butterfly in the breeze.

“Yes,” she tells him, “but where are you? _Who_ are you? You didn’t answer me last time. Not really.”

He pauses.

“I’m called Kylo,” he says. “Kylo Ren. I’m where you see me… Inside the mirror. And I told you — I’m a shard.”

“What’s that?” she asks.

“Just a piece,” he murmurs. “More monster than man.”

She considers that. She lets her eyes linger over him the way he’s done to her; searching, soothing, and she decides she isn’t afraid of shards. Or monsters.

She’s seen those, and this man doesn’t strike her as one.

“Why?”

“Why what? Say it,” he counters, stepping up to the glass. He doesn’t touch, but she still has to crane her neck to look at him now; he’s… _tall_ , this close to the mirror. Close, but not close.

“Why are you inside a mirror?”

She demands his answer the way her Master demands she not learn magic.

His lips twitch; briefly, fleetingly, into a bitter smile, but he doesn’t answer.

“Did he tell you what happened?”

This time she pauses.

“I know everything I need to know about you,” she lies.

“You do?” Another trembling chuckle escapes from the side of his mouth, echoing to her ears. His humor is justified; they both know she’s lying.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t be asking. “Ah… you do. You have that look in your eyes.”

“What look?” she asks. Her words taste hot and red, like a mouthful of cinnamon for fever.

“Of someone lost,” he answers, softly.

“I’m not lost.”

“He found you,” the man in the mirror guesses. Correctly. “Luke?”

“Master Luke,” she corrects him.

“Master, but not apprentice,” he repeats himself, “an old wizard afraid of magic. Haven’t you ever wondered why?”

She has, but she doesn’t tell him that. Instead, she pulls her hand away.

 

— — —

 

She tells herself she won’t visit the man in the mirror again. Kylo Ren.

She lies.

 

— — —

 

Rey is late to rise the next morning, but not to visit the Queen for afternoon tea. She’s surprised to find the door to the royal’s chambers barred upon arrival.

She knocks.

_Tap tap. Tap tap._

No one comes. She waits patiently — ten minutes at least — before she knocks again.

_Tap tap. Tap tap._

The taps echo in the corridor, and she thinks of _his_ voice, echoing out of a mirror–

The door creaks open, and Rose, the Queen’s first lady-in-waiting, emerges this time.

“I’m so sorry, Rey, I should’ve sent word — the Queen sends her apologies as well, but she doesn't feel well enough for tea today.”

“Is she alright?” Rey asks.

Rose says sorry again with her smile.

“She will be. Will you– ”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Rey says, anticipating her request, “I’ll inform the High Wizard.”

“Good,” Rose nods. “She may need his brew early this week. If so, I’ll send word.”

 

— — —

 

“You’re back.”

“Yes,” Rey says. Something sticks in her throat. “The Queen is not– she was not well.”

Master Luke looks up from the spellbook he’s reading. Slowly, he sets it down on the table he’s sitting at in front of the hearth.

“An early brew, then?”

“Yes.”

His hand closes around the side of the table. As if he were holding onto it to stay steady.

“I want to help the Queen.”

Master Luke looks up at her.

“You do. Every week.”

“I bring it to her,” she pushes, “I want to help you brew it.”

Master Luke looks back down at his spellbook.

“You already do. You fetch and clean the herbs.”

A frustrated sigh strangles its way from her throat, but she can’t regret it. She’s boiling over, frazzled and frantic, and Luke just _sits_ there. Too slow to move.

“That’s not what I mean. I want to help, Luke. Why won’t you let me?”

He stands, still too stoic, still too calm for her liking. She’d rather he raged. She steps toward him–

He takes her arm. Fury and shame cut into the lines of his face, lit by the firelight, and they mingle with a sadness so heavy that it scares her.

She’d never thought Master Luke afraid of anything.

“No. I told you already, Rey. _No_.”

 

— — —

 

“You’re why he won’t teach me.”

It’s barely been an hour since Master Luke retired, and not full a day since she’d resolved to leave the mirror — and Kylo Ren — well enough alone.

And yet, here she is.

The man in the mirror shrugs.

“Yes.”

She glares at him; tries gripping the glass, but her fingers slip and slide over the smooth expanse, smudging it.

He eyes the smudge.

“I’m not the only reason, you know.”

Her annoyance ebbs away — like time gone missing. Curiosity claims its place.

“The Shadow…” he trails off, watching her, “you’ve seen it.”

She rests both hands on the mirror as if she were peering through a blurry window.

“Shadow?”

The man springs up from his spot on his bed, and she thinks he’s too big for the thing, because it creaks, _loudly_ , and then he comes close, the closest he’s been, and he _looms_. Mirror or no, he towers over her, staring and searching. For _something_.

“Don’t be afraid,” he says, “I feel it, too.”

She bites her lip, grateful for the tang of blood under her teeth.

“I can show you. You need a teacher.”

He bends his head, nearly bumping it against his side of the glass.

“Tell me your name. Your real one,” she says. She doesn’t ask, but the words still come out a question.

He works his jaw; seemingly trying to will words stuck behind his teeth. The silence stills and stretches between them, and Rey imagines the castle’s washing women shaking out a sheet.

“Ben,” he breathes the word, “My name was Ben.”

She watches his mouth move again. It’s unfair he should have such a pretty one; it makes his words hard not to hear.

“Show me.”

 

— — —

 

He starts slow.

First, she learns how to listen.

He insists she hear the silence, pouring over every sound with closed eyes. She doesn’t understand what he means at first — she just sits there, eyes clamped shut and waiting for something to happen. It’s only with patience that understanding dawns, all in tiny moments that pepper her skin and catch in her ears:  

The pitter-patter of a field mouse, come into the castle for warmth.

The groan of a sword, weighted with rust and disuse.

The _drip, drop_ of condensation slivering down into the cellar.

Her own breathing.

And his, just out of reach — on the other side of the mirror, but still there, so close. She thought she’d feel it on her cheek if he were really next to her.

And then, and then, that thread of magic between them, that _thrumming_ , soft and steady and comforting and constant.

She hears that, too. Even after she tells him goodnight, and that she’ll come back the next night. She can’t seem to stop hearing it, no matter where she goes or what she does.

Something inside her has always been there... but now it's awake.

 

— — —

 

Leia looks worse.

She’s awake, at least, and looks cheerful, but tired — head back on fluffy pillows, hair unbraided and unkempt. It’s not a sight most of Chandrila has seen, and it’s not a sight Rey wants to.

But it’s her duty to help in whatever way she can, so here she is. Carrying in the bowl of brew Master Luke made for his sister, and learning magic from the man inside Luke’s mirror at night.

No matter that Luke only knows of half of her efforts.

“Rey,” Leia calls. She sounds so quiet. “I’m so happy to see you. Thank you for coming.”

“Of course,” Rey says. Behind her, Han nudges her forward, and she obeys, bringing the Queen the mixture that — for so long — seemed to ease her weariness.

Leia’s grip is too slack to drink it without help, so Rey steadies the bowl for her, helping her get it all down. There is no immediate effect, not like Rey usually sees. Instead, Leia drifts and drowses, humming a sweet song in her sleep.

Han’s sharp intake of breath pulls Rey from her reverie. She looks back at him, and there’s a turmoil tearing at his face that startles her.

“Han, are you– ”

“Yes,” he interrupts, voice rough. He waves a hand at her as if to say it’s nothing.

“What is it?” Rey asks.

He sighs, and it’s _familiar_ again; long and slow and clattering, an echo of something else she’s seen, touching her memory with featherlight fingertips.

“She never sings that song unless she’s thinking of him,” he admits, staring at Leia while she dreams.

“Who?”

He meets her eyes.

“Our son.”    

 

— — —

Second, she learns how to speak.

Not simple words, but spells. The way to intone. The way to compel. The way to shape what she says to make the commands glimmer and glint with life; to _do_.

It’s like… music.

“Another kind of magic,” Ben assures her after she tells him.

She agrees with him. A tune forms on her lips; the same soft and lilting lullaby she’d heard from Leia earlier that day.

Ben’s scars shiver, becoming molten in his face, wet and shining like tears, and Rey stops. Something clicks — a key to a door she didn’t think to open — and she thinks she knows who Kylo Ren was. Who Ben _is_.

“Tell me what happened. Please.”

He bites the inside of his cheek, then spits out a breath, long and rattling, and his scars darken to a deeper blue; like ink across parchment. Or bruises blossoming across soft skin.

 _Soft_. His skin looks soft.

It’s only then that the words come. Slow. Deliberate. Seeking.

“He sensed my power. As he senses yours. And he feared it.”

“Why?” she asks. He sneers and she thinks he won’t answer, that he won’t admit what she knows must be his part in all this, but then he speaks it all in a rush.

“I was his apprentice. Before you. And I touched the Shadow, Rey. It mirrored me and mimicked me, and so he locked me away. Here. A place I can’t hurt anyone.”

He hangs his head.

“Apart from her.”

His eyes snap back up to hers.

“What?”

“Leia,” she explains, “somehow, I think… she’s keeping you alive.”

“How?” he asks. Anguish burns his scars black, and she wishes she could touch him. Somehow.

“I don’t know,” she says, “but I’m going to find out.”

 

— — —

 

The third is touch. This, she teaches him.

She starts slow. Fingertips grazing the glass until her palm connects, and she looks up to make sure he’s watching.

He is. His eyes haven’t left her once.

“I’ll help you,” she says. “You’re not alone.”

She watches his Adam’s apple bob. He comes as close as he can, now, matching his fingertips to hers on his side of the mirror’s surface.

“Neither are you.”

She lets her other hand leave the mirror to travel lower, and lower, grazing not glass, but her own skin: from neck to breast to navel, and then, lower again. She wants to close her eyes to the sensations — she’s felt them before, but not like this, _never_ like this — but she can’t. Not when he’s watching her. Not when she can smile at him as she whimpers, and he chokes a little in response, those dark eyes of his becoming even darker.

At some point, she sinks to her knees, and he follows, still watching, still careful to keep his fingers connected to hers. He’s so close that his breath fogs up the glass.

She teaches him how to touch, and he matches her, mirrors her in every way. Lower. Harder. Faster.

“Rey,” he whispers, but it’s more like a whine, and it’s beautiful.

If only she could touch him — then it would be perfect.

 

— — —

 

As Rey learns, Leia wanes and wastes away, and Rey feels her and Ben and Han’s hearts breaking, one crack — one splinter, one _shard_ — at a time.

She feels Luke’s heart, too, but just barely. He’s walled it off, hidden it from her, and she’s too scared to try and break down the barrier because once she does, he’ll know everything.

She’s done waiting.

 

— — —

 

As always, she waits for Master Luke to sleep. This time, though, she doesn’t slip down to the cellar to see Ben. Tonight, she has a different task.

Before Ben, she couldn’t have opened the gold basin in Luke’s study. But now she knows how to listen to it, pulsing something too sleek; now she knows how to speak to it, with a hushed command that must be simpering; now she knows how to touch it — warily.

The lid — by the looks of it, iron ore, stained crimson from age — is heavy, but she manages to lift it away.

Inside, there’s…nothing.

“Hello?” she asks.

But then, a voice.

“Hello?” _it_ asks.

Her stomach curdles, and she glances around, looking for anything to be there, but there’s still nothing. Just the voice.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” it repeats.

“How can I help?”

“How can I help?”

Is she even really hearing it, or is it just in her head?

“Are you the Shadow?”

“Are you the Shadow?”

She pauses. Licks her lips. Looks down — nothing but the empty basin, her hands shaking on either side.

“I’m trying to help you.”

“I’m trying to help you.”

She tries to listen like Ben taught her, but the voice takes up too much space in her head.

“Please, stop.”

“Please, stop.”

She digs her fingernails into the stone of the basin so hard it hurts.

Touch — grounding and real, she uses it to try and stay steady.

“Why are you repeating what I say?”

“Why are you repeating what I say?” _it_ repeats again, but this time it sounds different, too close. Far too close.

“What do you want?”

“What do you want?”

It isn’t repeating anymore.

It’s mirroring her. Perfectly.

“Listen– ”

“Listen– ”

“Just listen– ”

“Just listen– ”

Tears burn at the corners of her eyelids, and she _feels_ it, clawing at her mind and her voice, trying to steal _her_ away.

“Rey, no!”

“Rey, no!”

She isn’t who shouts, but is she who mirrors?

She doesn’t know.

She twists around, and Luke is barreling toward her, afraid and angry and she feels the Shadow try to suffocate her, to crawl inside and burrow somewhere it can take root–

She blinks her eyes shut, pushing her panic and her horror away, and she _listens_ to it scraping at her, and she _hears_ how to say no.

So she does.

“No.”

The voice dies, and she breaks the basin in half with her bare hands.

 

— — —

 

When she focuses, she sees Luke’s face.

“Rey? Can you hear me?”

He’s sitting on the floor with her, hands on her forearms. Something glitters in her own grip; she’s still clutching the two halves of the gold basin.

“Luke,” she starts, but he interrupts her.

“How did you– ”

“You shouldn’t have locked him away.”

Luke takes the two halves from her, setting them on the floor.

“The Shadow slipped into him. I saw it — darkness swirling inside, stifling all light, all goodness. He would’ve– ”

“No,” Rey counters, “It’s not there anymore. You’ve seen that now. You made a mistake. You created Kylo Ren.”

He says nothing, so she stands.

“And now, we’ll set him free.”

She makes for the cellar, but what he asks next stops her.

“How? How did you resist it, Rey?”

She turns back toward her Master — an old wizard with a good heart, judgment still clouded by fear.

“I didn’t,” she explains, “I let it in. And then I told it no.”

 

— — —

 

She goes to the mirror for the last time, pressing both palms to the glass. When Ben appears on the other side, she closes her eyes.

“Rey,” he rumbles, “The Shadow, you didn’t– ”

“Shh.”

“But– ”

“Hush.”

He goes quiet for a moment, but then a question bursts through.

“Why?” he whispers. She opens her eyes.

“I was listening like you taught me,” she says.

“For what?”

She smiles.

“For how to open the door.”

**Author's Note:**

> I toiled with the idea of making Ben and Rey the same age/grow up together per your other prompt, but since it’s something I’ve done in my other [fantasy fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815809/chapters/34283430), I wanted to experiment with something a little darker, a little more closely related to a sexual awakening sort of story for Rey a la the Force Bonds. I hope you enjoyed and thank you for the opportunity!


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